ACO S 805 (Pavo II Cluster)

In May 2015, I spent some time at the Tivoli Astrofarm in Namibia. During that stay, I captured several deep images of the southern sky using the observatory’s “Stella” system. One of the targets was the Pavo II Galaxy Cluster, located in the constellation Pavo.

This distant galaxy cluster lies in a rich region of the southern sky, filled with faint elliptical and spiral galaxies that form part of the larger Pavo–Indus Supercluster. Its depth and structure make it an excellent subject for long-exposure imaging under dark southern skies.

Data calibration, registration, and final image processing were all performed using PixInsight.

The result was as follows:

In the image you can find very many galaxies and some quasars. The most distant of them is

WISEA J184532.70-630313.8 with a redshift of 1.6 and an apparent mag_v of 20.05 (SDSS DR17).

The faintest star in the image has an apparent mag_v of 22.2 (SDSS DR17).

The images were taken with the following equipment:

• Location: Tivoli, Namibia
• Telescope: ASA 12″ Astrograph
• Focal length [mm]: 1076
• Focal ratio: 3.6
• Mount: ASA DDM85
• Camera: FLI Microline ML8300
• Filter: L:R:G:B
• Exposure time [min]: 155:60:60:60
• Resolution: 1.04″/px